Baseball report: Will Rangers hold on to Minor?

Friday

Jun 7, 2019 at 12:01 AMJun 7, 2019 at 8:44 AM

By Evan Grant

The Dallas Morning News

ARLINGTON, Texas (TNS) — Since the end of spring training, clubs have spent almost every minute focused on preparing for the amateur draft. When it concluded on Wednesday afternoon, around 5 p.m., teams took a well-deserved break.

It lasted about an hour.

It didn’t take long at all for teams to dive into the next phase of the season: Preparing for the trade deadline. By 6 p.m., the Chicago Cubs were reportedly finishing up a deal with free agent reliever Craig Kimbrel, who no longer had draft-pick compensation attached.

An hour after that, a handful of scouts, including reps from Atlanta and both New York teams, were in the stands to watch Mike Minor, who might be the most attractive potential pitching acquisition to be had this summer, face off against Baltimore in a 2-1, 12-inning Rangers victory.

Attractive, that is, if the Rangers make him available.

It is the next burning question they must answer. Supposedly rebuilding, the Rangers rolled into Wednesday surprisingly tied for the AL’s second wild-card spot. The question now: Has Minor’s exceptional performance made him part of the future or does it, instead, make him a vehicle for building that future?

Asked Wednesday about his position on Minor, who is signed through 2020, Rangers GM Jon Daniels said he had no desire to address the situation at this time.

Why should he?

Would you tell anybody you are holding a full house? Where Minor is concerned, the Rangers could not be in a better position. For the time being at least, if the Rangers say there is no reason to be motivated to deal Minor, the standings back them up. If somebody wants him, they are going to have to demonstrate their interest with a ramped-up offer.

The Rangers have to tackle the idea of potentially approaching Minor about an extension past 2020. He’s 31, but seemingly at the top of his game. If the rebuild is ahead of schedule, the Rangers need somebody to help anchor the rotation next year and beyond.

“Right now, he’s a legit No. 1,” said Rangers manager Chris Woodward, who spent the last three years with Clayton Kershaw. “The way he’s throwing the ball, he’s one of the top five pitchers in baseball.”

Though his 5 2/3 shutout innings against Baltimore on Wednesday were hardly efficient (he tied a career high with 117 pitches) — and he was out of the game long before Delino DeShields’ walk-off single — Minor lowered his ERA to 2.57 for the season, fifth in the AL. He is averaging more than a strikeout an inning, which is something you rarely have been able to say recently about a Rangers starter.

What drives his value higher: He’s been elite for a full year now. In 179 innings over his 30 starts dating back to June 6, 2018, Minor has a 2.92 ERA, which ranks sixth in the majors, the smallest of decimal points better than Justin Verlander. He’s holding hitters to a .226 average, which is 18th in the majors.

Among lefties, his fastball is above average in velocity and the spin rate on it (2,574 rpms) is the best since the start of last year.

It’s been made all the more dangerous because Minor is using the fastball more unpredictably. He’s throwing fastballs about 43% of the time.

“It makes the fastball almost unhittable,” Woodward said. “He’s getting the most success possible out of it. And he’s got more weapons to back it up, so, when he throws it, he doesn’t have to be as precise with it.”

As the trade season starts to gear up, the starting pitching market looks like this: Dallas Keuchel is now free to sign with anybody without the added burden of a team giving up draft-pick compensation. It makes sense that, like Kimbrel, he will go quickly.

After that, it’s Madison Bumgarner, who is a free agent at the end of the season and has the leverage of a full no-trade protection, or Minor as the top choices. Teams will spend much of the next six weeks considering the pair and making phone calls.

The Rangers must decide if they are willing to listen.

At the beginning of the year, the need to do so seemed so clear. Now, it’s far more complex. For the Rangers, the more complex this gets, the better.

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